"A mind once opened never loses."| A Seton Hall Alum on the College Application

We had the opportunity of interviewing Noelle Sorich, an alum of Seton Hall University, about: College Application In college, Noelle received a degree in International Relations, Economics, and Modern Languages interned with multiple organizations at the UN, and was invited to be the commencement speaker at graduation was the President of the Model United Nations team in Seton Hall, where the team is now ranked within the top 25 programs in the country. Key points Noelle shares: "... don't count out private universities because with schools like Seton Hall (that are small enough and aren’t big research universities ), you're going to be able to get much more scholarship money." "...when you're describing extracurriculars in the Common App or things like that, they also make a big difference - make sure you convey why it's important and why you liked it. Though bullet points are great , you still want to pinpoint on why xyz matters. " How did you find out about Seton Hall? A: Oh my gosh, I honestly don't even remember how I found Seton Hall to be completely honest. It was probably when I was looking at CollegeBoard and Princeton Review to look at International Relations programs and colleges. I don't know, but I think it was also because I was looking for a certain type of school. I will say, however, Seton Hall was not originally the type of school that I was looking for. When I was in high school, I really wanted to go to a huge university, like a state school - a big, big university with a football team. That felt really important to me at the time, and I wanted to go to a big name brand school. Then I found Seton Hall, and I did a tour there. I loved the campus. It was very appealing and had small class sizes. I mean, I feel like that's what you hear every time from any smaller to midsize university, but it made a world of a difference . I had an Arabic professor that I had for two and a half years out of the four years that I was at Seton Hall. In fact, I’m Facebook friends with a lot of my professors , and I still keep up with them very closely because I was a ble to make relationships in college . And if I really liked a professor and liked their specialty, I was able to take their class multiple times , which I loved, because it made the connection so much stronger. What do you think is the most important thing that colleges consider in your application? A: I would say it is for the essay . Admissions counselors will spend the time to read it and ask, “Who is this person? Why does it matter that they want to come to this school? How will they fit in? They just want to get to know you because your resume can only say so many things (It's the same thing when you're applying to jobs). Also, when you're describing extracurriculars in the Common App or things like that, they also make a big difference - make sure you convey why it's important and why you liked it. Though bullet points are great , you still want to pinpoint on why xyz matters. What is something you wish you knew about the college application process while you were still in high school? A: I would say that when I was looking at schools, I was really close minded about a lot of schools. And I saw myself only looking at certain schools for certain reasons. In retrospect, I wish I would have kept more of an open mind about schools, because I wouldn't have found Seton Hall if I had only considered looking at big schools with football teams and national relations programs or polytech side programs that I liked. I did look at a lot of private universities, and I would say don't count out private universities because with schools like Seton Hall (that are small enough and aren’t big research universities ), you're going to be able to get much more scholarship money . I ended up paying less for college than a lot of my friends who did go to other state schools. So, in turn, I'm really thankful for that. This interview originally took place in an audio format. However, we have converted it to text to avoid sound quality issues. To ensure coherency, we have slightly modified the wording.